Tag Archives: Orchestra

JOHANNESBURG and CAPE TOWN — The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), featuring Phil Batesn (pictured here), brought four decades of their unique blend of orchestral rock to South Africa recently, playing concerts in Johannesburg and Cape Town — with Robe moving lights featuring on both shows.

The Johannesburg gig was staged in the 2,800 capacity Centre Court venue at Emperor’s Palace Casino, Kempton Park, with Kevin Stannett from Crosslight asked to light the show by promoters AfroAsia Events.

Although Kevin — also the regular LD at Emperor’s Palace – had last year specified 12 Robe ROBIN DLX LED Spots for their main venue, for concerts in the arena there is a bare stage, so all technical production has to be outsourced. For this show, lighting kit was supplied by Pan Tilt Lighting run by Kurt Du Preez.

Four 15 meter wide trusses were installed overhead and four upright trussing sections were positioned onstage behind the band together with four more — two per side — left and right for side lighting positions.

Twelve Robe ROBIN LEDWash 600s were rigged on the two most upstage trusses, with another ten on the mid truss and two on the front truss to provide a nice tungsten front wash. These joined other spot moving lights on the back two trusses.

Across the four upstage towers were 12 x ROBIN LEDBeam 100s with another three on each of the four side-stage towers, plus 12 tucked in between the band in banks of three — giving 36 in total, all arranged in this retro ACL style! There were also some other beam lights on the rig plus profiles for key lighting.

Three Robe CitySkape Xtremes on the floor behind the main band members were used for highly effective silhouetting which was a bit different. “I love these fixtures and they worked perfectly for these applications,” exclaimed Kevin.

He toned all the trusses with Robe LEDForce 18 PARs.

“The speed of the LEDBeam is incredible,” he comments adding that their small size and light weight also make them infinitely usable just about anywhere. “The LEDWash 600 is also phenomenal.”

For control he used the house’s ETC Congo console.

He created a bit of a retro aesthetic to light the concert which was extremely well received as the band belted out hit after hit embracing a myriad of genres from classical electro rock to full on 1980’s disco to huge anthemic ballads and everything in between to a delighted audience. “It was a very enjoyable show to light with plenty of creative range,” he concludes.

Kevin has been using Robe products in his design work since 2003 and in that time has seen the company grow steadily and bring out an increasing range of “Impeccable” products. He says that the amazing service and support from Robe’s South African distributor DWR is another reason his has remained so keen on the brand.

He’s also recently specified 12 ROBIN Pointes for a church installation in Kempton Park — following up their initial purchase last year of 12 LEDBeam 100s.

A world-renowned concert hall for orchestral music, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw is reinforced with a new Meyer Sound MINA line array loudspeaker system for its amplified events. The self-powered system is designed to be flown and ready within an hour, and removed for unamplified symphonic concerts.

Both coverage and voicing of the MINA system are optimized for the 1,974-seat hall’s natural acoustics, featuring a reverberation time of 2.8 seconds when empty and 2.2 seconds when filled.

“Our goal was to give The Concertgebouw a system that was consistently better than what was available from outside rental companies,” says principal system designer Jan Panis, an accomplished engineer who specializes in reinforcement for modern classical music. “It was a challenge, because the same acoustics that make The Concertgebouw splendid for unamplified music are problematic for amplified concerts. MINA’s clarity, purity, and lack of coloration are qualities exceptionally well-suited to this application.”

MINA has been well received in its new home, according to Alfons Hutschemaekers, theatre technology coordinator for The Concertgebouw. “With this system I don’t hear the speakers, I simply hear an open and spatial sound,” he says. “I particularly like how it reproduces vocals and the brass in big bands.”

The system provides total front and back coverage with two flown arrays, each featuring 11 front-facing MINA loudspeakers, one MINA loudspeaker for the extreme side balcony, and three MINA loudspeakers aimed to the rear for the choir/organ loft seating. On the floor, six UPM-1P loudspeakers supply front fill, while two USW-1P subwoofers anchor the low-end frequencies. The system also includes an Allen & Heath iLive FOH console.

The dedicated array configuration streamlines workflow, according to Hutschemaekers. “Saving time is a critical issue, since we have so many programs with very short periods in between,” he points out. “The system has been a tremendous time saver.”

In addition to its sound quality and discreet profile, the self-powered benefits of the MINA system are also essential in this application. “We have main arrays, side fills, and rear fills all in one array, with no amplifiers in the attic, which is a difficult place to reach,” says Panis. “One technician can put the system up in an hour, where it can take a full crew four or five hours with other externally-powered systems.”

The MINA loudspeakers are used for jazz and pop shows, as well as for augmenting soloists in symphonic concerts. In addition to the resident Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, acts that have used the new system include the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jazz Orchestra of The Concertgebouw, and Brad Mehldau. Artists such as Bobby McFerrin, Tori Amos, and Roy Hargrove are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Designed exclusively for The Concertgebouw and kept on site when not in use, the MINA arrays are owned by PME-Téchnica, a new collaborative enterprise formed by Jan Panis and associate Koen Keevel.

Permanent Meyer Sound systems are heard in all other smaller performance spaces of The Concertgebouw. The Small Hall is equipped with four UPJunior VariO loudspeakers and two UMS-1P subwoofers, The Choir Hall features seven UPJunior loudspeakers and a USW-1P subwoofer, and The Pleinfoyer has four UPM-1P loudspeakers and a USW-1P subwoofer.

This past weekend The Hilliard Arts Council successfully produced their annual summer community musical, this year the musical was Les Miserables. It was the first licensed community production of the musical to take the stage in Central Ohio since the licensing became available and since the film took the screen. The performances took place at Hilliard Darby High School on July 12, 13, and 14.

Several weeks earlier, the Arts Council discovered that the venue, where they had decided to host this year’s summer musical, had some serious issues with their house PA. This was problematic because the Arts Council relies on venue house PA’s when they produce performances. ARTS Owner, Robert Vance, looked into the issues that were taking place and diagnosed that three out of four house PA horns were completely blown and the fourth was significantly damaged. The school district took steps to address the issue and replaced components in all four horns.

Once the repair was complete, the Arts Council was hopeful that all of their PA issues were resolved. Unfortunately, as soon as the system was powered back up, the same issues arose. Turns out, all the horns were blown again, now only days away from the first dress rehearsal.

Once again, Robert looked into the problem. But this time knowing that it wasn’t a high school student accidentally playing music too loud that blew the horns, Robert wondered why the horns blew again. In looking into the configuration of the signal processor in the system, Robert realized that the crossover was set incorrectly. Full range was being sent to the horns. This time, when the district had their chosen contractor come out again to replace components in the horns, based on Robert’s diagnosis, the district knew to ask about the crossover settings and make sure that it was configured correctly before the vendor left the job site.

At this point, however, it was too late to use the house PA. Unfortunately, the system was not repaired in time for the musical. This is where ARTS came to the rescue. We provided a complete house PA for the production – front of house mix, monitor and orchestra sub mixes, compressor/limiters for wireless vocal microphones, power amplifiers and a main house PA with front-fill speakers, vocal and instrumental microphones, etc. The whole shebang.

Robert Vance, ARTS owner, will be the production audio designer for the show. Robert has been directly involved in seventeen of the past nineteen Hilliard Arts Council summer musicals in some capacity; eleven of which served as audio designer and/or engineer. This year will be the most involved audio mix in the history of summer musicals in Hilliard – including the addition of an orchestra sub mix, several extra monitor mixes, etc.

It will be the first licensed community production of the musical to take the stage in Central Ohio since the licensing became available and since the film took the screen. This is a pretty big deal! The performances will be at Hilliard Darby High School on July 12 & 13 at 8pm and on July 14 at 3pm. Tickets can be purchased online in advance.

With The Eliminate Project, Kiwanis International and UNICEF have joined forces to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus. This deadly disease steals the lives of nearly 60,000 innocent babies and a significant number of women each year. The effects of the disease are excruciating – tiny newborns suffer repeated, painful convulsions and extreme sensitivity to light and touch.

Each year, Hilliard Davidson High School Orchestra Department hosts a fundraiser for a charity that the students chose. This year they chose The Eliminate Project. The fundraiser is a benefit concert that features instrumental and vocal music, dance, and video. Since the fundraiser’s inception a number of years ago, ARTS has been hired to come in and engineer the increasingly complicated audio for the event. The audio design for the show includes sound reinforcement for both vocal and instrumental acts, sound reinforcement for the orchestral pieces, and for pre-recorded audio and video playback items.

Robert Nelson Vance, owner of ARTS, worked with Hilliard City Schools in an effort to open Hilliard Bradley High School Performing Arts Center at their new high school. This included ordering and installing equipment, inventorying items on construction specification sheets, creating cut sheets for contractors to complete work in the facility, etc.

The culmination of all this work was the Dedication Ceremony for the new school. The ceremony included instrumental and vocal performances by Bradley students and the guest speaker for the evening was our own Governor Ted Strickland who praised the community on their financial support of the facility and spoke of how the building is environmentally-friendly and technologically equipped for the 21st century.

You may recall that we worked with the Hilliard Davidson High School Symphony Orchestra in November of 2007 on a project that was to benefit concert for the children of Uganda, which are suffering from a twenty year war that has ravaged their country.

Similar to the last benefit concert, we’re also planning on producing a short video that will accompany the orchestra during their closing number. The montage-like video will feature still photos from Uganda, video recorder in Uganda, and artistic live video shots of the orchestra as they perform.

The concert is free of cost, but donations will be accepted to benefit the children through the care of Invisible Children Inc.

On November 28, 2007, the Chamber Orchestra at Hilliard Davidson High School held a benefit concert for the children of Uganda, which are suffering from a twenty year war that has ravaged their country.